Adjustable roll shaft bearing assembly



June 28, 1960 BEARING ASSEMBLY 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Dec. 22, 1958 Z Z 1 a m N 7 m mm 9 6 6 z A 5. M 1 M. w r///// A Hmww I i. I l I l June 28, 1960 K. MERTING ETAL ADJUSTABLE ROLL SHAFT BEARING ASSEMBLY 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Dec. 22, 195 8 m M an 6 H.

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United States Patent 2,942,506 ADJUSTABLE ROLL SHAFT BEARING ASSEMBLY Karl Merting, Charleston, Edward L. Rowell, Summerville, and William E. Craver, Jr., Charleston, S.C., assignors to Craver Industries, Incorporated, Charleston Heights, S.C., a corporation of South Carolina Filed Dec. 22, 1958, Ser. No. 782,116

3 Claims. (Cl. 80-5'5) This invention relates generally to an adjustable roll shaft bearing assembly and more particularly to a rolling mill having roll shaft bearing assemblies which are adjustable in both the vertical and horizontal directions.

It is generally old in the roller mill art to provide means for vertically adjusting the spacing between the rolls of a sheet metal rolling mill. In many rolling mill applications, however, it is desirable that certain other adjustments be possible in order to obtain various types of rolled products from a given apparatus. For example it may be desired to vary the number of rolling stations for a given apparatus and consequently a change in the longitudinal spacings between the various roll stations might be necessary or desirable. Also it might be desired for various rolling applications to vary the distances between the roll stations of a given rolling mill apparatus, as for example where a metal strip is being formed by a series of roll passes into certain shapes or forms, as for example a channel-shaped configuration. In this latter example, one common limitation in the art is that the amount of forming that can be done in any roll pass under no circumstances should be great enough to carry back through the strip into and beyond the preceding roll pass. In other words, the angle or length of the carry back depends on the thickness as well as the width of the leg to be formed, and also on the kind of stock used. All three factors must be considered in their relation to the spacing between the roll stands. As no exact mathematical formula exists for working outtheanswers, the roll designer must lean heavily on past experience in comparable cases in setting the longitudinal distances between the roll stands.

Thus the primary object of the present invention is to provide a rolling mill apparatus having a plurality of roll stations longitudinally adjustable relative to each other in the direction of strip feed.

A further object of the invention is to provide a rolling mill apparatus having a plurality of roll stations, each of said stations having means for adjusting the'spacing between the rolls thereof, and means for adjusting the spacings between the roll stations longitudinally in the direction of strip feed.

A more specific object of this invention is to provide a rolling mill having stationary'parallel spaced upper and lower guide rails, and at least one bearing housing assembly longitudinally slidably mounted between said upper and lower guide rails, said bearing housing assembly including a pair of spaced vertical guide posts and upper and lower roll-shaft-end bearing housings mounted intermediate said guide posts, and means for vertically displacing said bearing housings relative to each other to vary the spacing between the roll shaft ends.

Other objects and advantages of this invention will become more apparent from a study of the following specification when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 is an elevational view of one side of the two- I 2,942,506 Patented June 28, 1960 ice way adjustable roll shaft bearing assembly for one station of the rolling mill; t

Fig. 2 is a vertical sectional view taken along line 2-2 of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a bottom view of the apparatus of Fig. 1;

Fig. 4 is a sectional view taken along line 4-4 of Fig. 1; and

Fig. 5 is a perspective view of a three station rolling, mill according to the invention.

Referring more particularly first to Figs. 1-4, the ends of the upper and lower roll shafts 1 and 2, respectively, are rotatab-ly supported by means of the self-aligning ball bearings 3 in the upper and lower roll shaft bearing housings 4 and 5, respectively. At each end the roll shaft bearing housings have spaced vertical flanges 4a, 5a between which are positioned the vertical bearing housing guideposts 6 and 7; the roll shaft bearing housings 4 and 5 are thus vertically slidably movable between the guide posts. The upper bearing housing 4 has an upwardly extending neck portion 4b containing a threaded bore 4c, and the lower bearing housing 5 has a downwardly extending neck portion 5b containing a threaded bore 5c. a 5

At its upper end, vertical guide post 6 has a projecting portion 6a (Fig. 4) which extends between the upper pair of stationary spaced parallel guide rails 8, 9. vAt its lower end vertical guide post ,6 has a similar projec tion 6b extending between the lower pair of stationary spaced parallel guide rails 10, 11. Guide post 7. has similar projections 7a and 7b. Slidably positioned upon the upper surfaces of guiderails 8 and 9 is the upper rail clamp 12 having lateral flanges 12a, 12b extending downwardly along the outer surfaces of the guide rails toward the bearing housings. Threaded bolts .13 extending through apertures in the upper rail clamp 12 and through the space between the upper rails 8 and 9' threadably engage bores in the upper extremities of the vertical guide posts 6 and 7. Similarly threaded bolts 14 extending through apertures in the lower rail clamp 15 threadably engage bores in the lower extremities of the vertical guide posts 6 and 7. Tightening of the bolts 13 and 14 will tudinal direction of strip feed. The surfaces of the shoulders on the guide posts defined by theprojections extending between the guide rails (i.e., shoul ders 6c defined by projection 6a in Fig. 4 for example) cooperate with the adjacent guide rail surfaces to provide vertical stability to the guide posts.

Extending through lower rail clamp '15 and through the space between the lower guide rails is the lower bearing bolt 16 which threadably engages the bore 50 of lower bearing housing 5. By tightening bolt 16 the lower bearing housing 5 will be caused to be rigidly seated upon spacer washer '17. The ends of the lower bearing housing will be firmly maintained in position due to the cooperation between flanges 5a and the vertical guide posts 6 and 7. V

Threadably connected at its threaded lower end 18a to bore 4c of the upper bearing housing 4 is the micrometer adjusting screw 18. At its upper end the micrometer screw has a threaded bore 18b for receiving the top bearing bolt 19 which extends through an aperture in the upper rail clamp 12 and through the space between the upper guide rails 8 and 9. Rotation of micrometer screw 18 (by suitable tool means cooperating with radial bore holes achieves vertical movement of the upper bearing housing 4 relative to the lower bearing housing 5 to vary the spacing between the roll shafts 1 and 2 and consequently the spacing between the rolls secured thereto.

In order to displace the roll shaft bearing housings longitudinally with respect to the upper and lower guide rails, bolts 13 and 14 are loosened to release the clamping tensions of rail clamps 12 and 15. Lower bearing bolt 16 is also loosened to release the clamping of lower bearing housing to the rails and 11. In the same manner, upper bearing bolt 19 is loosened to release the clamping pressure of the upper bearing housing 4 to the upper guide rails 8 and 9. Should the micrometer screw 18 be retained against rotation during loosening of bolt 19, then subsequent retightening of the bolt 19 after longitudinal displacement of the roll shaft bearing assembly will result in the same vertical setting between the upper and lower roll shafts being obtained.

When the bolts 13, 14, 16 and 19 are sufficiently loosened at each end of the roll shafts of the station, the bearing assemblies (and the rolls secured therebetween) may be readily displaced longitudinally along the upper and lower guide rails to any desired position. Upon subsequent retightening of the bolts the roll shaft bearing assembly will again be rigidly clamped to the horizontal mutually-parallel guide rails.

Referring now to Fig. 5, the rolling mill consists of a frame 20 to which the lower guide frames 10, 11, 10', 11 are rigidly secured. Table 21 secured to the frame provides a supporting surface across which the sheet material 22 to be rolled is fed. The apparatus illustrated is of the three-station type--i.e., there are three substantially identical sets of roll pairs and associated roll shaft hearing assemblies A, B and C. Motor-transmission means 23 are provided for driving the rolls. The upper guide rails 8, 9, 8', 9' are secured to the upper extremities of the vertical guide posts 6, 7, 6', 7 of the various stations. If desired, the upper guide rails may be rigidly connected at their ends to the lower guide rails or the frame 20.

It is readily apparent that the primary advantage of the highly versatile rolling mill lies in the fact that an infinite number of roll stand spacings may be achieved due to the simple longitudinal adjustability of the roll shaft bearing assemblies relative to each other in the direction of strip feed. If desired, the number of stations can be varied and the longitudinal spacing of the roll pairs may be adjusted to produce the desired rolling operation. The bearing assemblies may be longitudinally adjusted manually, hydraulically or by suitable mechanical means.

While in accordance with the patent statutes we have illustrated and described the best form and embodiment of our invention now known to us, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that other changes may be made in the apparatus described without deviating from .4 the scope of the invention set forth in the following claims.

We claim:

1. A sheet metal rolling mill comprising a frame, spaced upper and lower guide rail means connected to said frame at each side thereof in the longitudinal direction of the sheet feed, a plurality of roll stations mounted between said upper and lower guide rail means and longitudinally spaced in the direction of sheet metal feed, at least one of said roll stations being adjustable in the longitudinal direction of sheet feed relative to the other roll stations, said adjustable roll station including upper and lower horizontal roll shafts transversely arranged relative to the direction of sheet feed, said roll shafts being journalled at their ends in separate bearing housings, the bearing housings at each end of said roll shafts being guided for vertical movement between two longitudinally-spaced vertical guide posts, said guide posts being intermediate said upper and lower guide rail means, each of said upper and lower guide rail means consisting of a pair of parallel horizontally-spaced rails, an upper rail clamp slidably mounted on the upper surfaces of each associated pair of said upper guide rails, each of said rail clamps extending above the adjacent pair of vertical guide posts and having flange portions extending downwardly in contiguous engagement with the outer side surfaces of said upper guide rails, a lower rail clamp slidably mounted on the lower surfaces of each associated pair of said lower guide rails, each of said lower rail clamps extending below the adjacent pair of vertical guide posts and having flange portions extending upwardly in contiguous engagement with the outer side surfaces of said lower guide rails, and bolt means extending between the associated upper guide rails and between the associated lower guide rails for clamping the upper and lower ends of said vertical guide posts to said upper and lower rail clamps, respectively.

2. Apparatus as defined in claim 1 wherein said vertical guide posts have vertical stabilizing projections at the upper and lower ends thereof extending respectively between the horizontally-spaced upper guide rails and between the horizontally-spaced lower guide rails.

3. Apparatus as defined in claim 1 and further including means adjustably connecting the bearing housings associated with one of the roll shafts of said adjustable roll station to one of said rail clamps for adjusting the vertical spacing between the roll shafts of said station.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 

